Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(127)

Badger laughed. “Not me. I’m f*ckin’ glad to have you wearing the Mane again, man. I can’t say how glad.”

“Me too, me too. Everything’s gonna work out. When Isaac and Len get home, thing’s’ll be good. We got through.” He lifted his drink, indicating Nolan, who was chatting up some sweet little thing in an itty bitty skirt. “And Hav’s boy is prospecting? Damn. I know he’s proud, wherever he is.”

“Yeah, that’s right. He’s a great kid, too.” Badger turned his eyes to the old ladies sitting together. “Looks like Riley’s got another bun.”

Bart looked over at his old lady; their eyes met, and Riley blew him a quick kiss. “Yeah. Gonna have a son. Her series ended. I’m trying to talk her into retiring. I think she might be softening to the idea. She hates to leave Lex with the nanny.” Bart turned to Badger. “Hear you got one on the way, too.”

“Yep. Little boy for us, too. Due in September.”

“That’s great, man. Those girls over there are the best things in my life.”

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“What is?”

“How having a family makes everything make sense.”

“No shit, Badge. No shit.” Bart turned to the bar and set his empty glass down. “I’m gonna send my girls home. Then let’s get shitfaced.”



oOo



It was late when they got back to Signal Bend. They’d pushed on through the last leg, pulling into the clubhouse well into the wee hours of the morning. Show had sent them all wherever they wanted to go, saying there was no need to meet in the middle of the f*cking night. Then he’d ridden home. Badger had followed immediately after, feeling anxious to see Adrienne, even though he’d spoken to her when they’d stopped for supper.

Except for the light over the front porch, and another over the stove, the house was dark. Hector had come padding down the hallway, growling softly, as soon as Badger opened the front door, but he was wagging his tail by the time he came into the living room.

“Good boy.” Badger ruffled his ears. “Let’s go to bed.”

Adrienne was deeply asleep, curled on her side, her hand lying on her little swell of belly. His son was in there. His son. Henry Robert, named for his father, and for hers.

He stripped and slid between the sheets, curving his body around hers. She moaned quietly and shifted, lifting her head. “You’re home. Yay.”

“Shhh. Sleep, babe. I’ll say hello the right way in the morning. You get your sleep.” She nodded and slipped instantly back under. He lay there for a long time, listening to her deep, steady breath, feeling the peace in her slumber slow his own rhythms down. This quiet life was the life he wanted.

He needed it to last.





EPILOGUE


Note: This series began with Isaac and Lilli, and it should end with them.



What follows, then, is more like a novella—several chapters in Isaac and Lilli’s points of view, bringing their story, and the Signal Bend Series, to its conclusion. Since Leave a Trail ends with Isaac and Len in prison, though, I didn’t want to prolong your wait for the rest of their story by publishing this as a separate work.



But it really is a separate text from Badge and Adrienne’s story, so this epilogue gets its own title and epigraph.



Isaac and Lilli’s epigraphs come from The Divine Comedy.




oOo





THE TRUE SEED


“Thus you may understand that love alone is the true seed of every merit in you, and of all acts for which you must atone.”

—Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XVII




oOo




LILLI



The First Day



Lilli parked and turned off the ignition. Then she sat there. Haunted by thought that she would have to go into the house—the house Isaac in which had lived his entire life—and live a life without him, she was paralyzed. She sat and stared at the steering wheel, the reality she had shoved aside with steadfast determination since the fall now claiming its position at the forefront of her life. He was gone.

No. Fuck it. He was not gone. He was away. It was different. She still had him, and he still had her. This was a pause. A long tour of duty. That’s all. She shook her head to knock things straight in there.

“Mamma? Play Legos.”

Lilli looked into the rearview and saw her boy in his car seat, holding the toy motorcycle Isaac had given him that morning. She took a deep breath and smiled. “Okay, bud. Let’s go in.” She looked across the mirror at Gia. Only five, but brilliantly bright and too perceptive for her own good. They’d decided to be as honest with her as they could, telling her that Daddy had to go away for a long time, but they’d go to see him as much as they could.

She’d asked how long he’d be gone. They’d told her. Six years. (Fuck, Lilli hoped it wasn’t longer than that.) Unable to get her little head around that timeframe, she’d asked where she’d be in school when he came home. She loved school; its rituals and routines were beginning to structure her thinking. Isaac had told her she’d be in sixth grade.

That, she’d understood. And this morning, Lilli had watched Isaac peel her from his body while she wept and begged.